


The Fairest Flower That E'er Bloomed

by NoirSongbird



Series: Child Ballads [5]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fae and Faeries, Fluff, M/M, Mentioned Character Death, Proposals, Reaper76 Valentine's Week, well and undone by this point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 15:09:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9767510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoirSongbird/pseuds/NoirSongbird
Summary: True love's kiss gave Gabriel a second chance at life. There's something else he figures he and Jack deserve a second chance at.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hello hello o/ Here's my submission for Day 4 of Reaper76 Valentine's Week; this fic is set in my ongoing Child Ballad Series, aka Ballad AU, aka "Overwatch but like. With faerie bullshit."
> 
> Jack and Gabriel's story specifically is [Cold Blows the Wind,](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8802814) if you'd like to check it out!

It was a stupid idea. It was a  _ ridiculous  _ idea. It was probably a pointless idea.

And yet here Gabriel was, very sincerely contemplating the idea. 

Sure, he and Jack had already been legally married once. He certainly considered that to still count, and clearly Jack did too, Gabriel’s unfortunate year spent dead or no. But it seemed….romantic, somehow, to renew their vows, to make that promise all over again, because...well. “‘Till death do us part” had  _ happened,  _ and it  _ hadn’t actually kept them apart. _

That, Gabriel thought, was reason enough to take the opportunity to renew their vows.

Besides, his first proposal to Jack had been half by accident, in the middle of a fight, and he’d meant, as soon as he realized he’d said it, to laugh it off as a joke, except Jack had said yes before he could.

He really ought to do it right, with the ring and a nice dinner and everything. Nothing too public or too over the top, they didn’t need that, but something...a little less  _ spontaneous  _ than “we’re being shot at and I’m not sure we’re going to make it out of here, but if we do I’d really like to marry you.”

(That wasn’t  _ exactly  _ what he’d said. Honestly, what had come out amidst the hail of bullets had been “when we get out of this, Morrison, we’re getting married,” and Jack had said “yes” without even an ounce of hesitation and, well. Gabriel might not have meant to say it  _ then,  _ but he’d damned well meant to  _ say it.) _

So, hell, sure, he’d do it. It would be good for them.

 

* * *

It took him a long while to get everything together, especially because he was trying to do it under the radar. Everyone on the damn base was gossipy as all hell, and he didn’t want word about this getting back to Jack before he was ready. 

So he ducked and dodged and snuck around to get reservations at one of Jack’s favorite restaurants and to get a new ring made, custom; he still knew Jack’s ring size by heart from their  _ first  _ set of engagement rings.

Once he had everything together, he presented dinner at the restaurant as a date night, to slip away for a little while from the absolute madhouse running Overwatch and Blackwatch had become - things would manage themselves for a few hours, Gabriel had insisted, and the upside was that in practical terms Jack really couldn’t say no to him, especially since they had Amelie and Ana to wrangle anything that might come up, in the  _ incredibly  _ unlikely event there was a massive, Overwatch-required crisis in the few hours they were out.

The ring box weighed heavily in Gabriel’s pocket as he considered exactly how he would do it - would he go all out and get down on one knee, which would undoubtedly draw a lot of attention? Perhaps something a tad bit more subtle, just to keep it lower key, though part of him really did want to go all out.

Might as well make the second go around as perfect as possible, right?

Jack looked absolutely radiant in the low light, in Gabriel’s opinion, and it was...it was good to see him out of the role of Strike-Commander, and to see him looking so much better than he had for the year he was mourning Gabriel’s loss.

It had killed him to have to watch Jack all but give up and not be able to do anything about it. All Gabriel had wanted for a year and a day was to be able to reach across the veil between the living and the dead, to step past whatever barrier was keeping them apart, and tell Jack it was going to be okay, that he had to keep going, that he  _ could  _ keep going.

He still wasn’t sure what forces, exactly, had conspired to give him the chance to do exactly that, but he knew he owed  _ something  _ powerful quite a lot of thanks. Whatever - or whoever - it was, it had let him come back, giving him the kind of second chance usually reserved for cheesy movies, if they were  _ really  _ going for the happy ending rather than a lesson about loss and moving on.

“This is...really nice,” Jack said, drawing Gabe out of his musings. “We haven’t had much time to...be us, since…”

“Since I came back from the dead,” Gabriel filled in. Jack tended to dance around it, but Gabriel had no such reservations - he supposed the difference was that, sure, he’d  _ been  _ dead, but Jack had  _ mourned  _ him being dead. 

“Yeah, that,” Jack said, letting out a little sigh. “It feels like if it’s not one thing, it’s another. First it was McCree and his hoard of dragons,” and Gabriel laughed, a little.

“I think technically only one of those is  _ his,  _ the rest are  _ Vaswani’s, _ ” Gabriel corrected.

“Details,” Jack said, waving him off, “he’s the one that brought them to Overwatch. And then it was the...thing, with Lena and Amelie and the Faerie King and  _ that  _ is still not a sentence I can believe I have cause to utter.”

“Yeah, ‘my second in command was missing for fourteen months because the Summer King of Faerie thought she’d make a great wife’ is really not a thing I ever pictured myself having to spin,” Gabriel admitted. “The UN is having  _ concerns  _ about the disappearance rate of Blackwatch higher-ups.”

“Bah,” Jack shook his head. “You’re in a dangerous line of work. We all are. They should be glad they got you and Amelie back.” He softened, suddenly, reaching across the table and taking Gabriel’s hand. “I know I am. I...don’t know what I would've done, if you really were gone forever.”

“Yeah,” Gabriel agreed.

Hell. this was as good a time as any, he supposed.

“About that - about me being back, I mean,” he said. Jack looked confused, especially when Gabriel withdrew his hand to reach into his pocket. Start subtle, he figured, and go bigger later. “I’ve been thinking,” he began, “that...well. We made some pretty specific vows when we got married. For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health,  _ ‘till death do us part.” _ He watched confusion write itself deeper on Jack’s face, as he tried to figure out exactly where Gabriel was going with this. “Death  _ did  _ do us part, for a while, but not even  _ that  _ could really do it.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring box. “So I’m thinking...we both know it still counts, but why leave anything up to chance?”

Understanding slowly dawned on Jack’s face, especially when Gabriel slid out of his chair and got down on one knee with the box in hand, because damn it, he was doing it  _ right  _ this time.

“Jack Morrison-Reyes, will you marry me? Again?” He asked, offering a hand to his lover. Jack was speechless, for a long moment, but Gabriel didn’t really need him to answer - his face said it all, the tears of joy running down his cheeks speaking as loudly as any words.

“Oh, Gabriel,  _ yes,”  _ Jack said, and Gabriel slid the ring onto his finger and then stood up to meet Jack for a long, slow kiss - exactly the kind of kiss that had brought him back to life, and just like then, he felt warmth spread through him starting at his lips, like his veins were filled with some molten liquid. When they broke apart, Jack was wearing a slightly mischievous grin. “Does this mean we get a do-over on last names? Because I’d like to pass on hyphenating, honestly.”

“That so?” Gabriel asked.

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking,” Jack said, “that  _ Jack Reyes  _ sounds just fine, really.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on tumblr at [noirsongbird!](http://noirsongbird.tumblr.com/)


End file.
